Pictures of a Shirtless Rob Lowe on the Cover of Vanity Fair 2011-03-29 10:35:14

Rob Loweshowed off the hot six-pack you love and looked every bit the sexy surfer on the Annie Leibovitz-lensed cover of Vanity Fair's May issue, which hits newsstands on the 5th. The Brat Pack icon and current Parks and Recreation star allowed part of his upcoming autobiography to be excerpted in the magazine, and Rob also opened up in an interview about his circle of friends during his teen years, which included Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, and Tom Cruise. Rob didn't pull any punches in the interview, sharing stories from his days on The Outsiders set, remembering Charlie's hard-partying 20s, and recalling just how impressed he was by Tom's intense focus. He said:

On meeting Tom Cruise on The Outsiders: "He’s open, friendly, funny, and has an almost robotic, bloodless focus and an intensity that I’ve never encountered before. . . already showing traits that will make him famous; he’s zeroed in like a laser."

On Tom's reaction to sharing a room during their auditions "We check into the Plaza Hotel. I am taken aback at the luxury and spectacle of the lobby. . . The front desk tells us we will be sharing rooms. In a flash, Cruise is on the phone to his agent, Paula Wagner. ‘Paula, they are making us share,’ he says. . . The rest of us are staggering around like happy goofs. . . 'O.K., then. Thank you very much,' he says like a 50-year-old businessman getting off the phone with his stockbroker. 'Paula says it’s fine.'"

On being proud of his work in the 80s: "The Brat Pack is timeless. We should all be so lucky in our lives to create things that we’re still talking about 25 years later."

On his playing and working hard with Charlie Sheen: "We competed to see who could play harder, then show up for work and still kick ass. The verdict: Charlie by a nose."